How Walt White Is Dragging Everyone Else Down with Him

The story of Breaking Bad is simple. An everyman "breaks" and becomes a monster. But as viewers have noticed over the five seasons, it's not a simple snap of a twig. Walt's break is a hole in a frozen lake, and the act of breaking through has sent out a spider web of fractures across that surface.

We've seen Jesse Pinkman turn from a foolish kid (albeit a meth dealer) into a killer. If not for Walt, all of the trauma that Jesse has had to endure would never have happened. Worst-case scenario, he ends up arrested for cooking subpar meth. It's worth noting that Jesse was done after Emilio was pinched. No money, no partner, no materials to keep cooking. But since partnering with Walt, he's been homeless, a heroin addict, had the love of his life die, faced death himself countless times, killed several people, and had all of his personal relationships fail.

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But Jesse has always been loyal to Mr. White. Not only did he kill Gale for him, he's put his life on the line more than once to keep Walt safe. Even as recently as this week's episode, with Jesse knowing that Walt killed Mike, he still refused to sell him out to Hank. And, not to imply that Walt hasn't reciprocated, but Jesse comes from a purer standpoint than Walter. Not since he squeezed some extra money from Tuco has Walter done something purely for Jesse. And now, with "Confessions," Jesse finds out that Walt, his last major relationship, had done something monstrous, solely to get his own way. Jesse has nothing left to lose, and it seems likely that in the episodes to come he's going to try to take just as much from Walter as Walt has stolen from him.

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On the other side of the spectrum, we have Walt's family. Besides the obvious blows to Walter Jr. and Holly, being shuffled around like chess pieces in their parents' private war, there's Skyler herself. A woman who started the series thinking marijuana was the most heinous thing her husband could do, now a money launderer and criminal right along with him. You also have Hank, forced into a gun battle with Tuco while operating solely out of concern for his brother-in-law. That led to his near-death fight against Tuco's cousins, and the near-dissolution of his marriage. Marie turned back to her kleptomania to deal with the stress, and accidentally wound up in the devil's pocket to pay for Hank's injuries. Finally, with Walt's blackmail DVD now finished, Hank is even more in danger than before. Not only can he not arrest Walt, but he'll have to actively prevent anyone else from tracking Walt down or risk his own name being dragged through the mud. And that's what makes Walt's "confession" his true masterstroke, the best example of Walt dragging others down to his level. When he chose to become a criminal, his family had no choice but to follow him. He certainly wasn't going to back down. The more aware of his activities they become, the more culpable his family is, and the more they have to work beneath the law to stay safe.

What is Vince Gillian trying to tell us? At its heart, Breaking Bad is a show about chemistry. The study of change, of how matter deteriorates, and of the explosive consequences when certain elements interact. When one element in an equation changes, it affects all the other elements as well. Walter White doesn't exist in a vacuum, but Heisenberg has become a black hole. And none of his family members may be able to escape his pull now.